Be my Freedom
by BrookTrout18
Summary: Noah Puckerman had always been a badass. He had never felt the need to protect anyone until now. There was something about the small girl who wouldn't give him the time of day that made him want to protect her. PuckxOC. Rated M for reference to rape.
1. Think of Me

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the apple scented candle on my desk and the Glee season one on dvd. Oh and Aurora McCoy. I own her too.

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><p>Noah Puckerman sighed as he walked through the main quad of Ohio State's campus. He was silently cursing all the boys on his floor, if it weren't for all of them needing to take a shower at the same time he wouldn't be running late for his first college level class.<p>

It wasn't that Puck usually cared about being late for classes, but seeing as he was now a member of the Ohio State football team, (even if he was second string), he was required not only to get good grades, but to actually attend almost every class. And it was because of his football practice schedule that he was up, trying to function at nine in the morning.

Puck seriously needed to talk to whoever made up the schedule. For some reason the man had deluded himself into thinking that three hour practice sessions in the afternoon (Puck's preferred class time) was a good idea. Puck would soon talk some sense into the senior year team manager, even if he had to use his fist.

Glancing around to make sure that no one was paying him any attention he pulled his campus map out of his pocket to make sure that he was going in the right direction. The map was a dead give-away that he was a freshmen, and that was the last thing he wanted people to know about him. He had seen some hot tail around campus while moving in and he didn't want his first year status to ruin what he hoped would be a very busy year for him, at least in the bedroom department.

According to the map his geology class was in the building directly behind the fine arts and performance building. He could take the long way and walk around the building or he could cut through it and save himself some time, after all, the performance building was sure to have a back door somewhere. Because he was already running late he shoved the map back in his pocket and walked quickly toward the large, impressive looking doors of the performance building.

To his right and left were the entrances to two very large auditoriums that could probably have fit more than three times the population of McKinley High School. Puck quickly walked past them, picking a hallway that headed toward the back of the building at random. As he looked around he noticed that on each side of the hallway there were insulated practice rooms, each of them containing a shiny concert grand piano. He couldn't stop himself from letting out a low whistle, Berry would have loved these things. But then again, she was at Juilliard, so it was hard to believe that she would have any shortage of these pianos to play on. He reminded himself to shoot her an email that evening to see how she was adjusting as he continued to walk down the hallway.

It surprised him, how much he missed that stubborn, self-righteous, determined diva, especially seeing as he had only left Lima a week ago. But then again, he missed all of the Glee members. As much as he hated to admit it he had bonded with the geeks in New Directions during his three years in the club. They really were his family. And it didn't matter how many slushies he had gotten to his face, or how many times his former jock friends had made fun of him - the Glee kids stuck together. That wouldn't change, even if they were at different universities now.

He continued to walk down the hallway in search of the elusive back door that he knew had to be somewhere when he heard something from one of the practice rooms that made him stop. It had never occurred to him that someone would be using one of the rooms, especially as it was nine o'clock on the first day of classes. But sure enough, there was someone using one of the practice rooms a few doors in front of him. If the girl had just been playing the piano he wouldn't have stopped, but she started singing and he couldn't help, but pause to listen to her.

"_Think of me, think of me fondly  
><em>_When we've said goodbye  
><em>_Remember me once in a while  
><em>_Please promise me, you'll try_

_Then you'll find that once again you long  
><em>_To take your heart back and be free  
><em>_If you'll ever find a moment  
><em>_Spare a thought for me_

_We never said our love was evergreen  
><em>_Or as unchanging as the sea  
><em>_But if you can still remember  
><em>_Stop and think of me_

_Think of me, think of me waking  
><em>_Silent and resigned  
><em>_Imagine me trying too hard  
><em>_To put you from my mind_

_Recall those days, look back on all those times  
><em>_Think of those things we'll never do  
><em>_There will never be a day  
><em>_When I won't think of you_

_Flowers fade, the fruits of summer fade  
><em>_They have their seasons, so do we  
><em>_But please promise me that sometimes  
><em>_You will think of me_"

Puck listened to the girl as she finished the song on its high note. The girl had the voice of a bird, Mr. Shue would have loved to have her in New Directions. But something bothered him about her rendition of the song. _Think of Me_ was supposed to be a love song, a sad one, mind you, but a love song all the same. He knew this because Rachel had made the entire Glee club watch _The Phantom of the Opera_ during their junior year and then had treated them all to a lecture about how this song was the best love song she had ever heard.

But the way this girl sang the song it wasn't the way a girl would sing a love song. Her voice was beautiful, sure, but there was a bitter, almost angry, tint to her voice. She wasn't singing this song because she was in love with someone, she was singing because she was upset. Puck caught himself just before he pushed his way through the half-opened door, ready to comfort this complete stranger. He cursed lightly under his breath, when had he traded in his penis for a vagina? He was Noah Puckerman, he didn't go around comforting complete strangers unless they were hot.

The girl heard his whispered curse and she spun around; her dark brown, almost black hair, flying as she turned to glare at him. Puck's breath caught in his throat as he caught sight of her large brown eyes, the light spattering of freckles over her cheeks and nose, the pouty shape of her lips ... of course she had to be hot. The girl's glare darkened as she noticed the way Puck's gaze shifted appreciatively toward her chest and then back up to her face. "Can I help you?" she asked him, her tone full of ice.

Puck shook his head, a smirk spreading across his lips, even her speaking voice seemed perfect. "Yes, actually," he said, taking a step further into the room, ignoring the way the girl seemed to shrink closer to the piano the closer he got to her. "I was looking for my geology class, do you know where the Science Village building is?"

The girl rolled her large brown eyes, "Well," she said, her voice still cold and terse, "you're certainly not going to find your _Rocks for Jocks_ class in the Performance Arts building."

"How did you know I was a jock?" Puck asked, gently flexing his arms, hoping that the girl would notice his large guns.

She rolled her eyes again and resolutely looked at her nails as if she had never been more bored in her life. "You're wearing an Ohio State football jersey?" she asked, tapping her foot impatiently. "That's kind of a dead giveaway. Now, why don't you look at the map that's sticking out of your front pocket and get the hell out of my practice room?"

"You're practice room?" Puck asked, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't see your name on the door. Speaking of which, how about you give me that name, hmm?"

The girl shot him a scathing glare that left no doubt in his mind that what she wanted most in the world was for him to leave her alone. "That's because the sign up sheet is on the side of the door. And keep dreaming, cowboy, the last thing you will ever get is my name."

Puck nodded, a smirk spreading across his face again. There was nothing that he liked more than a good challenge. And that was exactly what this girl had just presented him. "Well, doll, my name is - "

"Not interested," the girl said, holding up her hand and spinning on the bench so that her back was to him. "Please shut the door on your way out," she said without looking up from the keys that her fingers were idly sliding over, producing soft notes every time she applied the slightest bit of pressure. Puck stared at her back for a few more moments before he nodded, it was clear that he had been dismissed. He backed out of the room and shut the door and continued to head down the hallway toward the back of the building, but not before glancing at the sign-up sheet to see if he could learn the singer's name.

He walked into his Geology classroom five minutes later. "Mr. Puckerman, I presume," the professor asked, walking forward to give the mo-hawked boy a syllabus. "You are aware that my class starts at nine o'clock short, correct?"

"Yes Sir," Puck responded as he started walking toward the first empty seat he found.

"And if you look down on the syllabus you see that any late-comers to my class will not be allowed into the classroom after today, correct?" the professor asked.

"Yes Sir," Puck responded again, wondering why the man was such a hard-ass.

"Good, try to make it on time from now on," the professor said with a nod. "And before we begin the class would you like to explain to me why you are late?"

"I got lost," Puck said with a shrug, shoving his hands into his pocket and leaning his chair back on its two back feet. "But I did hear the most beautiful bird in the Performance Art building." The professor did not know what Puck meant by that, but he nodded and turned back to the front of the room so that he could log onto the computer and open his powerpoint for the lesson. Puck pulled a new notebook out of his backpack and threw it on the table, opening it up to the first page.

The first and only note he took that day was her name, a reminder to learn as much about the girl he had met in the piano room as possible.

_Aurora McCoy_. It was a hell of a name.

~.~.~.~.~

Puck's phone buzzed on his desk later that night, signaling that he had received a text. He got out of his bed, where he had pretty much passed out after getting back from football practice. He flipped open his phone to see a text from Mike. The Glee kids were meeting for dinner at the dining hall and they wanted Puck to come too. Puck nodded and began to leave the room, but first he lifted his arm to smell his underarm. He didn't have time to shower, but he could at least put on a new shirt and some deodorant. He owed his friends that much.

He spotted them the second he walked into the dining hall. It wasn't hard, many of the Glee kids had ended up going to Ohio State. There was Mike and Tina (they were here because it was the only school that they both had gotten accepted to), Sam (he was on the football team with Puck), Finn (he had gotten to the school on the skin of his teeth ... if it hadn't been for Berry constantly ragging him about homework and grades he would never have gotten in), and Artie (he had gotten accepted to a school down South, but he had chosen to go to Ohio State so that he could stay close to Britney).

Rachel had gone to Juilliard (as much as she loved Finn, she was not going to give up her future on Broadway to go to school with him. But Puck knew for a fact that they had talked on Skype every night that week for at least two hours. As long as Finn didn't do anything stupid like cheat on her, they were definitely going to last.) Mercedes had gotten accepted to Columbia and was absolutely loving it, (even if that did mean that she was in the same city as Rachel _drama queen_ Berry. In fact the two girls had bonded quite a bit during their senior year and were almost inseparable now.) Kurt was going to the New York School of Fashion and Design (he had proudly announced that he was going to become the next Louis Vuitton when he had received his acceptance letter. Puck had no idea what French words had to do with fashion school, but he would take Kurt's word for it.) Lauren was still in high school right now, but she planned to go to a school out west who had already contacted her about giving her a wrestling scholarship. Santana had made it all the way to Lima Community College and that was fine with Puck . (She had been fun for a while, but then she broke up with him and then got jealous every time he talked to another girl, he hadn't needed that following him to college too.) Quinn had had enough of the drama from high school and wanted to get as far away from Lima as possible, so now she was at UCLA probably tanning on the beach at this very moment. And poor Britney, the blonde Cheerio had never been the smartest and she had failed most of her classes their senior year so she was still at McKinley. But since Artie had decided to come to OSU he was close enough to his girlfriend that he could still see him most weekends.

Puck smiled at the group as he sat down at the table, grabbing half of Artie's sandwich, he was too hungry to wait in line for food yet so he figured he would eat half a sandwich and then he would go get food for himself. "Thanks," Artie said with fake annoyance, "pick on the handicapped kid, make me wheel my way through the cafeteria to get more food. Real nice."

Puck chuckled and reached out, stealing Tina's cup of water and chugging it in one go. "I thought you were handicapable, Art," he said as he sent an apologetic look at Tina for stealing her drink.

Sam stood up, "Come on Puck, we'll go get more food. Artie, what can we get for you? Another sandwich?"

"Preferably one, that this one won't steal," Artie said, jabbing his thumb in Puck's direction. Puck chuckled and shook his head. "I'm sorry, bud, football practice kicked my ass today. That should be more than enough of an excuse."

"Sam said the same thing, but he refrained from stealing my food," Artie pointed out with a chuckle before he turned back to the conversation going on at the table. Sam and Puck chuckled and headed off to the buffet area of the dining hall so that they could get more food.

Half way over to the pasta and pizza bar Puck stopped in his tracks, staring at a table in the back corner of the cafeteria. Sam turned around and looked at Puck, raising his eyebrows, wondering why he had simply stopped in his tracks. But Puck didn't notice, he could recognize those bright, big, brown eyes from across the cafeteria, he had spotted her again. "I'll be right back," he said to Sam before strutting across the cafeteria and throwing himself down in the chair across from Aurora. She flinched when she heard the chair legs scrape loudly across the floor and she finally pulled her eyes slowly off the table to look up at his face. "Hello, Aurora," Puck said with one of his most charming smiles.

"Great," Aurora muttered, standing up and gathering a plate of food that looked like she hadn't even thought about touching it. "It's you. How did you learn my name, by the way?"

"It was on the sign-out sheet outside _your_ practice room," Puck said with a shrug, standing up and following her toward the exit of the dining hall. "You were the one who told me to look at the sheet, remember? If you hadn't wanted me to know your name you shouldn't have told me to look."

Aurora sighed and spun around so that she could look up at Puck. But he had been much closer to her than she had expected, she ended up sailing straight into his hard, solid chest. But then a second later she had jumped back at the contact, sending her plate of uneaten food falling to the carpeted floor. Puck raised an eyebrow at her strange behavior and took a step closer to her. The girl shook her head and backed up, running into a table. "Can't you just leave me alone?" she asked in a voice very different to the cold tone she had used that morning. This tone was a whisper, she was pleading with him to leave her alone.

The dark-haired girl did not give him time to answer her question. She simply turned around and fled the cafeteria, refusing to look back, even when the mohawked boy called her name, waving her school i.d. in the air, she was going to need that to get back into her building. Puck stood there for a few moments before he felt Sam's hand on his shoulder. "What was that about?" Sam asked, raising his eyebrows at his friend.

Puck shrugged, "I don't know, but I kind of like her."

"Doesn't look like she likes you too much," Sam said with a chuckle as he led Puck toward the pizza bar. "She seems to want to stay as far away from you as possible."

"Yeah?" Puck asked, pocketing the girl's i.d. he would talk his computer nerd roommate into hacking into the school's enrollment system so that he could figure out where to find this girl so that he could return her i.d. to her. "Well that'll change soon enough. Everyone wants to ride the Puckerman Express after all."

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><p>Author's Note:<br>Hello all!  
>I'm back with a new story.<br>I don't have much to say about this story yet except for the fact that I think I love it!  
>But I really want to know what you guys think of it so be sure to leave a review for me!<br>Pinky promise I will respond to it.  
>Anyway... I will give extra points to anyone who can tell me where Aurora's last name is from! And extra, <em>extra<em> points to anyone who can tell me where the title of the story came from.  
>Thank you for reading!<br>I hope you liked this chapter and I hope to hear from you soon!  
>Until next time, happy reading.<br>xoxo,  
>Brook.<p> 


	2. Hero

Disclaimer: I own nothing except Rory and a Team Sanity banner from John Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Fear and/or Sanity. Because if I owned Glee there would be a character named Brook on the show and Puck would be dating her. It's the truth.

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><p>Aurora McCoy had been waiting to leave for college her entire life, or at least what she could remember of it. Her parents had died in a car crash when she was five years old. As both her parents had been only children and their parents had died before she was born she was thrown into the foster care system. And while there were plenty of nice foster parents in the system Aurora, better known as Rory, hadn't seen many of them.<p>

She had been kicked out of the system as soon as she turned eighteen and as she had never found a family that she really liked she was lucky that she had been smart enough to get a full-ride scholarship to Ohio State University. At least she wouldn't have to worry about paying for school too.

When she had moved into her dorm a week ago everything had seemed perfect. The dorm was bigger than she had expected, the sun was shining, she and her roommate, Lindsey, got along, and some nice upperclassmen had helped her carry some of her heavier possessions into her room so that she didn't hurt herself. And one of the boys had even invited her and Lindsey to a party on the Saturday before classes started. Even though she had been a bit of a nerd in high school, she had always wondered what it would be like to go to a college party and now she was finally going to get her chance.

No one knew her here, no one knew about her past, her parents, her foster parents. She could be an entirely new person if she wanted to be. She didn't know anyone at Ohio State, she had graduated from Public School 178 in Orlando Florida, every one at her school had decided to stick close to home and go to school at Florida state colleges. She had wanted to get as far away from everything that she had ever known as possible.

She and Lindsey had spent almost three hours getting ready for the party on Friday. Lindsey had made fun of her, saying that she was too conservative when she had walked out of the en suite bathroom wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. To be honest Lindsey seemed like she was going to be the best roommate for her. She was patient with Rory and teased her like someone would tease a sibling. She had instantly began rummaging through Rory's closet and pulled out a short, pleated back skirt. "Put this on," she said, a slight Northern accent tinting her tone as she started looking for a shirt for Rory to wear.

Rory wasn't sure what she really thought about the skirt but she was willing to give anything a try. And it was nice that for once in her life, she felt that she belonged somewhere. So she walked into the bathroom to change out of her pants and into the short skirt that she didn't even know why she owned. When she walked back into the room Lindsey turned around and tossed a tight purple tank top at her. "And stop going into the bathroom," she said, shaking her head, "we both have the same parts."

Rory nodded and turned around so that she was facing the wall and changed her shirt. When she turned around Lindsey was laughing at her and shaking her head again. Rory chuckled uncomfortably and sighed, "Just not used to being open with people," she said with a shrug. Even when she was a little girl, before her parents had died, she had been guarded.

Lindsey smiled and wrapped her arm around her roommate's shoulders, "You're going to need to get used to that, sweetie!" she giggled before grabbing her camera and the keys to their dorm and leading her new friend out the door into the hallway.

All the television shows Rory had watched when she was in high school hadn't lied. College parties were crowded and there was a lot of alcohol at the house. But what she hadn't expected was that as a freshmen she was one of the most popular people at the party. It seemed that the goal of most upperclassmen was to get as many freshmen girls drunk as possible.

Even though she had always wanted to go to a college party she did not want to be one of those drunk girls. She had lost track of Lindsey almost as soon as they walked into the party, she had found her in the bathroom an hour later, puking her guts out. She had tried to help Lindsey, but the girl had pushed her out of the bathroom, telling her not to worry and to go have some fun.

Rory had walked back down to where the drinks were and waited in line at the makeshift bar so that she could get something to drink. "What can I get you, Sweetheart?" the bartender asked when it was finally her turn.

"Just a soda please," she requested with a small smile.

"Look sweetie, how about I make you something special? Something more enjoyable than a plain old soda?"

"I don't want anything with alcohol in it," Rory said, shaking her head, "A soda is just fine for me."

"How about a Shirley Temple?" the bartender asked. "Sprite, cherry grenadine, and an actually cherry in it? Is that virgin enough for you?" Rory smiled up at the older man and he nodded before turning around to make her the drink. "Here you go," he said a minute or two later, "it's the most special Shirley Temple I've ever made, because you seem like a very special girl."

Rory smiled and nodded at the guy, "If I weren't as smart as I am I'd think you were flirting with me," she said, her smile getting wider.

"Well girlie, you're not as smart as you think then," the bartender said while winking at her, "because that was exactly what I was doing. Have fun tonight, okay? You should loosen up a bit, hopefully tonight will help."

Rory had nodded and walked away from the bar, sipping her drink through the pink straw the bartender had put in the cup as she pushed her way through the crowded hallway back to the dance floor in the basement. Once she got to the dance floor she allowed a freshmen boy to pull her into the middle of the crowd and ... and that was all she could remember.

She had woken up on Sunday morning in some seedy hotel room that looked as if you paid for the rooms by the hour located just outside of Columbus, Ohio. Even now, on Monday night, twenty-four hours later when she knew she was safe on a college campus she found it hard to breathe when thinking about what she had felt when she woke up the morning before.

_She woke up the next morning with a splitting headache which made no sense to her since she hadn't had anything to drink at the party the night before. She rolled over and groaned as she squinted at the light shining through the window, but something wasn't right, she could feel it in the pit of her stomach._

_This bed was too big, it was not the standard extra-long twin sized that she had expected to wake up in. This bed was much better and the bedding smelled like it had been washed recently, it didn't have the just-bought-from-Target smell that her bedspread and sheets had in her dorm. She knew before she had even really looked around the room that this was not her dorm. She also knew that she was very much alone._

_When she rolled over to look at the alarm clock sitting next to the bed she noticed two things. The first was that she was in a small, dirty hotel room. Normally this realization alone would have been enough to freak her out, but her second realization eclipsed the first. She was not wearing any clothes. A quick glance around the room showed her bra on the floor by the bathroom, her skirt hanging off the back of a chair, and her shirt at the end of the bed. Rory's breath caught in her throat as she gingerly lifted the sheets of the bed off her body to look at the mattress._

_There was a bloodstain on the mattress between her legs and what looked like her torn underwear at the bottom of the bed. Rory gasped and tried to pull her legs closer to her body so that she could curl into a ball and let the tears that were threatening to leak out of her eyes go. But when she moved her legs a sharp pain spread from between her legs up to her stomach. She gasped again, this time out of pain instead of fear._

_She quickly rolled out of the bed, ignoring the sharp pain that shot through her stomach and ran across the room to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and locking it even though she was the only one in the room. She ran straight for the shower, not bothering to look at herself in the mirror. She could almost imagine what a wreck she looked like right now._

_Without thinking about it she climbed into the shower and turned the water on. Deep down in the pit of her stomach she knew that she had been raped. The torn underwear, the blood on the sheets, and the pain that was radiating throughout her body were sure signs that last night had not been consensual. That thought made her feel dirty and all she wanted to do was clean herself off. As she reached for a washcloth and poured almost the entire bottle of hotel body wash on it she noticed the dark shadows of bruises that were spreading across her forearms. Definitely not consensual._

_It was then that she finally let herself cry. Tears began to slide down her cheeks, mixing with the warm shower water as she rubbed the washcloth over her entire body. After she had washed her body once she still felt dirty so she poured the rest of the body wash on the washcloth and washed her body a second time. And then, once the water had started to cool down she finally climbed out of the shower and gathered her clothes, throwing them on her body before she ran out of the hotel room in search of a bus stop._

_She found one not too far down the road and she sat down on the bench gingerly, trying to ignore the pain in her lower stomach and keep her bare bottom from actually sitting on the bench at the same time. She spent the next twenty minutes trying not to make any eye contact with people that passed by her. Every person that looked at her made her feel even dirtier than she did already. When the bus finally pulled up at the stop in front of the campus she felt as if she had never been more relieved about anything in her life._

_She had ignored Lindsey for the rest of the day on Sunday and had woken up early on Monday so that she could go claim a piano practice room even though her classes didn't start until one on Mondays. She had just needed some time alone, time that didn't involve thinking about what had happened to her on Saturday night, or what she was going to do about it. She needed some time to simply pretend that she was happy again._

_But she hadn't been allowed her private time because by the time she had finished the first song, someone had already interrupted her. She would have almost been okay with the interruption if the kid had been another music major but it turned out to be some stupid jock who had been cutting through the building when he stopped to watch her sing. It made her feel uncomfortable knowing that he had been watching her without her realizing that he had been there. Thankfully with a bit of the cold shoulder and telling him that she wasn't interested in him had scared him off. Or so she thought. But then she had run into him later that evening in the school dining hall_.

When she had sat down in a seat in the back corner of the dining hall she figured that she was safe from people looking at her. She had grabbed a salad from the salad bar but she hadn't really touched it. She sat staring at the table as if it was about to tell her something very interesting when she heard the chair across from her get pulled out. She flinched at the noise and slowly looked up to see the boy with the mohawk from earlier. "Hello, Aurora," he said a smile spreading across his face.

"Great," Rory muttered sarcastically, gathering up her plate of uneaten salad. "It's you. How did you learn my name anyway?"

"It was on the sign-out sheet outside your practice room," the boy said with a shrug as he started to follow her toward the exit. "You were the one that told me to look at the sheet, remember? If you hadn't wanted me to know your name you shouldn't have told me to look."

Rory sighed and spun around so that she could look up at the boy with the mohawk. But he had been much closer to her than she had expected, she ended up sailing straight into his hard, solid chest. He reached up to try to steady her, but she didn't need him to try to steady her. She jumped back as soon as she had realized what she was touching. She dropped her plat on the floor, lettuce flying everywhere. The boy raised an eyebrow and took a step closer to her. Rory shook her head, feeling tears filling her eyes as she backed into a table behind her. "Can't you just leave me alone?" she asked in a pleading tone.

But before he could even answer her question she had turned around and fled the dining hall without looking back. She heard him call her name, but she ignored him and simply kept running. This was the first time that she hadn't cared that people were staring at her as she ran past them. For the first time since Sunday morning she finally felt safe. Apparently the key to feeling safe was to run and never stay in the same place for long.

Without slowing down she pulled her Ipod out of her back pocket and turned it on shuffle before putting the earbuds in her ears and singing along with the first song that came through the earbuds.

"_Would you dance, if I asked you to dance?  
><em>_Would you run, and never look back?  
><em>_Would you cry, if you saw me crying?  
><em>_And would you save my soul, tonight?_" She sang, singing the first verse on her way to her dorm building. When she got to the door she sighed, realizing that she had left her i.d. in the dining hall. She should have turned around and gone back to the dining hall to get her i.d. but she was worried that her mohawked stalker was still there. So instead she sat down on a bench close to the door and pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them to her. She sat and waited for someone to walk out of the building so that she could run inside.

_"Would you tremble, if I touched your lips?  
><em>_Would you laugh? Oh please tell me this  
><em>_Now would you die, for the one you love?  
><em>_Hold me in your arms, tonight_

_I can be your hero, baby  
><em>_I can kiss away the pain  
><em>_I will stand by you forever  
><em>_You can take my breath away_

_Would you swear, that you'll always be mine?  
><em>_Or would you lie? Would you run and hide?  
><em>_Am I in too deep? Have I lost my mind?  
><em>_I don't care you're here, tonight_

_I can be your hero, baby  
><em>_I can kiss away the pain  
><em>_I will stand by you forever  
><em>_You can take my breath away._" If she hadn't had her earbuds in her ears she would have realized that someone was standing behind her and had joined her, harmonizing with her. It wasn't until she had stopped singing after the second chorus when she heard the man's voice behind her. She squealed and jumped, spinning around and ripping the earbuds out of her ears to stare at the blonde student standing behind her.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet. "I'm sorry if I scared you," he said softly. Rory vaguely recognized him as the boy that had been walking in the Dining Hall with the kid with the mohawk. "I just, I promise I'm not some creepy guy that walks around singing with people when they sing along with their Ipods. I used to be a member of the Glee Club at my high school. And I guess I couldn't resist singing along."

She nodded, the ghost of a smile spreading across her cheeks, "That's really creepy, actually," she said, pulling her legs closer to her body. "It really is."

The blonde guy shrugged, "I guess," he said, a smile spreading across his wide lips. "I'm Sam, Sam I am, and I do not like _Green Eggs and Ham_."

Unlike when he had introduced himself to the Glee Club like this the girl sitting in front of him had actually smiled at him. "Would you like them in a box? Would you like them with a fox?" she asked, refusing to look up from her feet. Sam chuckled in appreciation but didn't say anything, waiting patiently for her to introduce herself. Rory continued to to stare at her feet until she realized that the Sam kid hadn't actually walked away. "Oh," she said softly, "um, my name's Aurora."

"Aurora?" Sam asked, testing the name out on his lips. "Nice name."

Rory shook her head, a small giggle escaping her lips, "That's a lie," she whispered, "it's a weird name. You can call me Rory."

"Okay then Rory," Sam said, sitting down on the bench next to her. He noticed the way that she flinched and moved as far away from him as the bench would allow. This made him frown, but he didn't say anything. "What are you doing sitting out here?" he asked. "Do you live in this building or something?"

"Yeah," Rory said with a nod. "But I left my school i.d. in the dining hall when I tried to run away from your friend. I didn't want to run into him again so I figured I would just wait until someone else entered the building or left it."

Sam nodded, "Well then it's your lucky day because I live in here too, third floor. Come on I'll swipe you in, I highly doubt you want to sit out here by yourself much longer. It's going to get dark soon."

Rory nodded and stood up from the bench, and waited for Sam to swipe in through the front door. He held the door open for her and turned around and gestured for her to walk through it first. She shook her head and nodded, letting him walk through the door first. This boy seemed pretty nice, but she wasn't comfortable with the idea of him walking behind her. She didn't want to give him the chance to look at her butt.

Sam shrugged and walked through the door. Pulling out his phone to text Puck and tell him to come meet him at his dorm so that he could return the poor girl's i.d. to her. "Thank you," Rory whispered, realizing that she had said more to this kind of weird blonde boy than she had said to anyone else since Saturday night.

* * *

><p>Author's Note:<p>

So it seemed like you guys liked the first chapter... I think.  
>Four people added the story to their alerts list, but no one reviewed the story.<br>How am I supposed to know what you liked or didn't like if you don't review?  
>Plus I just like reading them, I'm not ashamed to admit that.<br>So please review this chapter. You got it?  
>Thank you!<br>And a special thans to: _Jamey Black_, _MiakaKyle_, _SinisterSocks16_, and _Vivalina_ for adding this story to their alerts list.  
>I hope you guys liked this chapter just as much!<br>Until next time, happy reading!  
>xoxo,<br>Brook.


	3. BrownEyed Girl

Disclaimer: all the amazing characters belong to Fox. All I own is a pair of really great purple aviators, flip flops, sunscreen, and Rory McCoy. (Can anyone tell I'm in the mood for summer?)

* * *

><p>Puck sighed as he walked across the small common area between the freshmen dorms toward Sam's dorm. How did Blondie luck out with not only living in the same building as the Aurora girl, but on the same floor? Puckerman was living in an all boys dorm and Sam was living not only in a co-ed dorm, but on a co-ed floor. Some boys had all the luck, and apparently today wasn't Puck's day.<p>

He met Sam at the door, "How'd you meet her?" Puck asked the second Sam had opened the door.

"She was sitting on the bench waiting for someone to let her in the building because you stole her i.d." Sam said, giving Puck a faux frown. "Her name's Rory by the way."

"Rory," Puck said with a nod, "I like that name. And I didn't steal her i.d. she left it in the dining hall when she was running out of there like a bat out of hell." Sam shook his head and gestured for Puck to follow him into the building. Puck followed him into the building and into the elevator. Sam pressed the button for the third floor and waited for the doors to shut before turning to his friend.

"Just um, don't get too close to her, don't invade her personal space, you know? I don't know too much about her, but she doesn't like people getting too close to her. Makes her nervous or something."

"She is very flinchy," Puck said with a nod as he exited the elevator. He waited for Sam to show him which direction to walk before turning left and walking down the hallway. "That's weird, I've never seen a girl that gets that flinchy around me. Usually they're too busy taking off their clothes to flinch."

"And that's the other thing," Sam said, shaking his head. "You probably shouldn't talk like that. She's jumpy around all men, not just you. So try to be nice?"

Puck snorted and shook his head, since when had he ever been nice? Sam knocked on the door to room 317 and waited for someone to answer the door. As they waited Puck could hear the sound of someone crying on the other side of the door. "Who is it?" a girl's voice called from the other side of the door, the question was followed by a sniff.

"It's me," Sam called through the door, "I have your student i.d."

"Sam?" the voice asked, thick with tears. "Um, hold on one second okay?" Puck heard someone walk past the dorm door and heard the sound of a faucet running. This dorm had bathrooms connected to the dorm rooms? Man, Puck really did have the short end of the stick. A few minutes later the door opened and there was Aurora, or Puck guessed Rory. Her eyes were red and puffy and her skin had the blotchy look that proved to Puck and Sam that it had indeed been Rory who was crying on the other side of the door. She caught them looking at her face, saw the concern in their eyes and shook her head, lifting her hand to wipe her eyes on her sweatshirt sleeve, "I'm sorry," she whispered, turning her back on them to really make sure that the tears had stopped sliding down her cheeks.

"Don't apologize," Sam said, taking a step into the room, but then he stopped. Puck sucked in a sharp breath. Sam hadn't been the only one to realize how Rory flinched and how she spun around in a defensive manner. This girl really did flinch a lot more than most girls. "Anyway," Sam said uncomfortably, "this is my friend Puck, from high school, he's got your i.d."

"Noah Puckerman," Puck said, holding out his hand, wondering if she would reach out to shake it. She didn't.

Rory nodded and her eyes darted up to look at Puck's face.

That one look had Puck's fists clenching. There was something heartbreaking about the way she seemed to be fighting so hard to keep the tears out of her eyes and yet, every time she wiped her eyes more tears filled them. Puck was finding it hard to understand what was going on in him. In his entire life he had only knew two people that he would be willing to fight for, to protect: his younger sister and his mother. But something in him wanted to protect this girl, this girl who he had only known for a day, this girl who had only said a few things to him, none of which were nice. He didn't know anything about this girl, but she shouldn't be crying, that much he did know. He sighed and rolled his eyes, seriously, when did he grow a vagina?

He held out his hand with her i.d., but didn't move any closer to her. The girl freaked out every time someone moved too suddenly so he figured it was best if she came to him to get the i.d. He looked up at her as she slowly inched forward, trying to convey how sorry he was for whatever had upset her with his eyes. But Rory refused to look up to the ground. Finally when she was within arms length of him she reached out and grabbed her i.d. from his outstretched hand. She jerked her arm away from him so quickly that it was clear she had been afraid of him grabbing it. She nodded, "Thank you," she whispered, addressing her left foot.

"Not a problem," Puck said softly, still looking at her with concern tinting his expression. He found himself hoping that her brown eyes would flicker up to his face and she would be compelled to tell him what was bothering her so much. But instead she glanced at the wall, wrapping her arms protectively around herself as her eyes filled up with tears, yet again. Puck took a step closer to her. Part of him knew that it would stress Rory out to have him closer to her, but he didn't care. All he wanted to do at the moment was to wrap his arms around her, hold her close to him, and tell her that everything was going to be okay. That he would take care of her.

It seemed as though Sam was able to read his mind because he reached out and grabbed Puck's arm, restraining his friend and teammate. He shook his head and sent him a warning glare when Puck turned his head to look at the blonde. "Well, um, we'll leave you alone then, I guess?" Sam said, glancing past Puck at Rory. The girl didn't look at them she simply nodded, still looking at the wall. "Right," Sam said with a nod. "I'll see you later. Good night."

Puck nodded as well even though she couldn't see him, "Good night," he repeated.

Rory turned her head a fraction of an inch and glanced at them for one tear-filled moment and then she nodded again, "Good night," she whispered. "And Noah?" she whispered, surprising both boys as they turned to leave her room, "Thank you again." She lifted up her i.d. so that he could see it.

"Not a problem," he said, a small smirk forming on his lips, "again." And then both boys left her room, shutting the door behind them.

"What do you think is wrong with her?" Sam asked as they walked down the hallway toward his dorm room.

Puck shrugged, he was trying not to think about what he would imagine had happened if his younger sister was older and acting like this. His fists clenched again. "It has to do with a boy," he said, trying to sound nonchalant. "He broke up with her or said something insensitive to her and never apologized." Even before Sam shook his head Puck knew that his explanation was taking the easy way out - it definitely was not the reason that she was so upset.

"Doesn't explain the flinching," Sam pointed out shoving his hands in his pockets. "It's the flinching that gets to me. Makes me feel guilty as hell even though I haven't done anything to make her flinch."

"It isn't any of our business," Puck said, shaking his head even though he wanted to agree, he knew the feeling Sam was talking about. Instead he shoved his hands in his pocket and waited by Sam's door so that the blonde boy could let him in the dorm. "That's the bottom line, it's nothing we need to worry about because it isn't any of our business." Sam nodded his head and unlocked his door, gesturing to Puck to walk through the door and following him in afterward.

The problem with Puck's statement about minding their own business and not worrying was that it was easier said than done. He couldn't get his mind off the small brunette as he, Sam, and the rest of the Glee boys sat on Sam's floor and bed and played video games. The worst part about it was every time he would picture the girl's face, tears sliding down her cheeks, he would feel an unfamiliar tightening in his chest - something he had never felt before. The feeling told him that something was wrong. His mother would call it intuition, but Puck tried to convince himself that it was simply heartburn ... it must have been the pizza he had for dinner that night. He shouldn't have eaten an entire pizza by himself, that was stupid.

Yeah that was it. It wasn't intuition or worry. The uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach was heartburn.

It was the damn pizza.

~.~.~.~.~

"We could get Tina to talk to her," Sam said, two hours later, throwing his controller down onto the floor. Puck turned his head around to glance at Sam, raising his eyebrows. "It's not like you've been able to get her out of your head either," Sam said, rolling his eyes. "You haven't been talking shit all night, that's not how you normally play video games." Puck looked around the room to see the rest of the guys nodding their heads, agreeing with Sam.

"Excuse me," Mike said, politely. "But what is Tina supposed to do? Who is she supposed to talk to?"

"This girl we know," Sam said before sighing and going into the whole story about how Puck had met her that morning and how she acted so weirdly around them. Puck spent the entire time that Sam was talking staring at his hands. No matter how much he tried he was not able to get the image of the girl crying and wiping at her eyes out of his mind. He shook his head angrily and heard someone clear their throat, he looked up to see that all of the boys were looking at him.

"What?" he asked with a frown.

"We were wondering if you thought it was a good idea," Artie said softly. Puck let his eyebrows rise, letting the boys know that he hadn't been paying attention and had no idea what they were talking about. "You and Tina are going to go hang out in the fine arts building tomorrow in the early morning, just take one of the practice rooms and play your guitar and sing."

"And what's that supposed to do?" Puck asked, wondering why he had been volunteered to wake up early just so that he could introduce this girl to Tina.

"If you leave the door open she'll get curious and come down to see who's playing," Finn pointed out as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which was pretty ironic considering that it was coming from Frankenteen. "If she's as into music as Sam makes it seem she'll walk to your room and then you just introduce her to Tina. And then you leave for class or something."

"And then?" Puck asked, raising his eyebrows again, still not entirely sure how this plan was going to work out. Or even what it was trying to do.

"And then Tina and Rory talk and hopefully Tina convinces her to spill her guts and story so that we can figure out what's wrong with her," Sam said. "And then Tina brings her to lunch and she hangs out with us."

"Why is she going to hang out with us?" Puck asked. "Don't you think that will make her feel a bit like a charity case?"

Sam shrugged, "I don't know, but I do know one thing. No one should be alone when they are obviously that upset. She needs friends right now. And isn't that what Glee club was all about, being someone's friend when no one else would."

"But we're not in Glee Club anymore," Puck pointed out, deadpanning.

"We're still Gleeks though," Mike said with a very strong conviction. "Always will be."

Puck nodded, taking everything his friends had said into account, as he turned back to look at his hand again. When he finally looked up he saw that all of his friends were looking at him expectantly. He smiled and nodded again. "I don't see why we can't try it," he said, his smile quickly disappearing as he thought of Rory crying again. "But I have one condition: we all need to be in the practice room tomorrow."

Artie nodded, "That might ensure that she doesn't get apprehensive about letting Tina bring her to lunch. She would have already met all of us so a large group at the lunch table in the dining hall wouldn't come as such a surprise."

The boys all turned to look at Puck, as if they couldn't believe that he could be so sensitive about someone else's feelings. "Woah," Puck said, holding his hands up in the air as if he were under arrest. "I wasn't trying to not shock her at lunch," (so that was a slight lie, but his friends didn't have to know that.) "I just didn't want to be the only one awake early tomorrow morning. If I'm going to be miserable for this girl so are you guys. All of you," he said, glancing at Sam with intense eyes because he knew that this had been the blonde's plan.

Sam nodded, understand why Puck was giving him the pointed stare. "Right, so we'll meet up tomorrow at... eightish?"

"Eight?" Puck thundered.

Sam shrugged, "She may have mentioned that she would be up and practicing around 8:30 tomorrow morning while we were in the elevator. We want to be ready for her, just in case she gets there early."

Puck rolled his eyes, but nodded, "Well boys," he said, tossing his game controller on the ground and standing up. "Since I will be waking up earlier than I had originally planned I'm gonna hit the sack. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

The next morning came way too early. But sure enough the Glee kids were up, when Puck walked into the performance arts building shortly after eight. He could hear them from the entrance. He smiled and shook his head before walking down the hall to meet them.

"You're late," Tina supplied the second he walked through the door. "We're doing this for you, the least you could do is show up on time."

"It was Sam's plan!" Puck pointed out, swinging his guitar around to the front of him so that he could sit down on a chair. "I just agreed to it."

"And Sam made up this plan because he knew that whatever was going on with this girl was bothering you as much as it bothered him," Tina pointed out. And then she smiled, "Now what are we going to sing next?"

Artie suggested for old time's sake the group sing a Journey song. Everyone agreed and they sang _Faithfully_. Once that song was done Puck began strumming his guitar to a very familiar tune. The boys smiled and began to harmonize with him on the first chorus. Everyone liked the song, but only Sam knew why Puck had chosen to sing it.

"_Hey, where did we go  
>Days when the rains came?<br>Down in the hollow  
>Playin' a new game<em>

_Laughin' and a-runnin', hey hey  
>Skippin' and a-jumpin'<br>In the misty mornin' fog  
>With our, our hearts a-thumpin'<br>_

_And you, my brown eyed girl  
>You my brown eyed girl<em>

_And whatever happened  
>To Tuesday and so slow<br>Going down the old mine  
>With a transistor radio<em>

_Standin' in the sunlight laughin'  
>Hidin' behind a rainbow's wall<br>Slippin' and a-slidin'  
>All along the waterfall<em>

_With you, my brown eyed girl  
>You my brown eyed girl<em>" Tina joined in now for the bridge. Puck smiled at her and nodded.

"_Do you remember when  
>We used to sing?<br>Sha la la, la la, la la, la la, l-la te da  
>Just like that<br>Sha la la, la la, la la, la la, l-la te da  
>La te da<em>" Puck looked up at the door to see Rory standing there staring at them. He smiled at her but didn't stop singing. He didn't want her to think that they had been waiting for her or anything. She looked nervous for a second, but then she gave him a very small, very soft smile. His smile widened before he started the new verse.

"_So hard to find my way  
>Now that I'm all on my own<br>I saw you just the other day  
>My, how you have grown<em>

_Cast my memory back there Lord  
>Sometimes I'm overcome thinkin' 'bout it<br>Makin' love in the green grass  
>Behind the stadium<em>

_With you, my brown eyed girl  
>You my brown eyed girl<em>." Everyone laughed and cheered as Puck placed his guitar on the ground. Sam had noticed that Puck was looking at the door during the last verse and he quickly glanced in the direction to see Rory standing nervously by the door. He laughed and reached out to clap Puck on the shoulder.

"I've got to say Puckerman, that was so much better than _Big Ass Heart_."

"No," Tina said, shaking her head and laughing, "I loved that song. It was cute."

"Chang," Puck said, shaking his head and addressing the female Chang. "How long have you known me? I never intended and never want to be cute. I'm a stud, dammit."

Finn laughed before turning to the door, "Oh," he said softly, not knowing that the girl staring at them was the girl they were all waiting for. "Can we help you?"

Puck had been watching Rory out of the corner of his eye to make sure that she didn't walk away, but he was still surprised that she was still standing there. "Rory!" Sam said, excitement coloring his tone even though he didn't get up. He didn't want to scare her or upset her. "What are you doing? How long have you been there?"

Rory nodded while looking down at her foot, "Um, you guys were in my practice room," she said softly.

Puck bit his lip to keep from laughing out loud. Of course Sam would have chosen the room that the girl had signed up for. That was why he was so certain that Rory would come to meet everyone. The blonde was sneakier than Puck gave him credit for. "You could have just told us we needed to leave," Puck pointed out, starting to stand up and looking like he was about to leave.

"No," Rory said, shaking her head. "You guys sounded like you were having fun. I didn't want to interrupt that. I was just going to go down the hall and find an empty unreserved room, but ... "

"But what?" Sam asked.

"But that's one of my favorite songs, my Dad used to sing it to me when I was really little," Rory admitted with a small smile. "I decided there was nothing wrong with just waiting for the end of it."

Puck saw the way Rory was looking at everyone else in the room. The group made her nervous, that much was certain, but there was also a hint of curiosity in her eyes. It was like she was trying to figure out how Puck and Sam had so many friends so early in the school year. He smiled at her and reached out an arm, gesturing to her that she should walk further into the room.

She didn't, but he had known that she wouldn't, so it wasn't a surprise.

"Rory this is Finn, Mike, Tina, and Artie," he said, nodding to each person as he said their name. "They were all in the Glee Club with us when we were in high school. And now we go to the same school together."

"And you just decided to wake up early on a Tuesday and sing together?" Rory asked, crossing her arms over her chest. She was skeptical, Puck could see it in her brown eyes. He could also see that she had been crying recently, he felt his fist clench, but he tried to relax as Rory opened her mouth again. "In my practice room? This is becoming a bit of a trend for you, isn't it, Noah?"

Puck couldn't help but smile at the way she said his name. She was tentative about it, as though if she said his name too often they would have to be friends and she wasn't sure if that's what she wanted yet. "Hey," he said, holding up his arms in defense, "I wasn't the one spying this time, McCoy, that was all you."

Rory nodded and almost smiled before looking down at her feet. She half turned as though she was finally going to walk down the hallway to find a new practice room, but Sam stopped her. "You can have your room back, Rory," he said softly so as not to surprise her. "We were all going to go get ready for class anyway. Besides Tina that is, she doesn't have class until this afternoon."

Rory nodded, but didn't look up from the floor. She crossed her arms defensively over her chest and shrunk into the door frame a bit when the boys started to stand up. Tina walked up to her slowly and gently touched her arm. Rory inhaled sharply and shrunk even closer to the door frame before looking up and realizing that it was a girl that had touched her. "Do you mind if I stay here with you?" Tina asked. "I don't really have any girl friends here yet, and watching the boys get ready for class doesn't seem like much fun to me."

Rory looked up at Tina as if she was honestly surprised by the question. It was like she couldn't imagine anyone ever wanting to hang out with her. But then again, it would be nice to have a girl around she decided, Lindsey hadn't talked to her since Saturday night. She slowly nodded before looking back at her foot. Hoping no one would notice the tears that had sprung into her eyes when she thought about Saturday night. Everyone noticed, but they didn't say anything because they didn't want to make her feel more uncomfortable than she already was. She reached up and wiped her eyes before lifting her chin and looking at Tina with a determined look in her eyes. "That would be nice," she said softly, determined that the two would become friends. She was scared and jumpy, but that didn't mean that she couldn't have friends, right?

Puck tried to swallow the feeling of jealousy that was rising in his stomach when he watched the way Rory responded to Tina. His head knew that it made sense, boys obviously made her feel nervous and uncomfortable, but it still bothered him that she seemed more open to talking to Tina, someone she had only just met, than to him who she had met twenty-four hours ago. But then again, twenty-four hours really wasn't anything, was it? He smiled at her before turning to Tina, "We're meeting for lunch around one if you can make it," he said with a wink before turning back to the small brunette standing next to his friend. "You can come too, if you'd like."

"To lunch?" she asked, playing with her fingers so that she would have something to look at. The hazel-eyed boy made her nervous. He looked at her with more intensity in his eyes than she had ever seen. She really didn't know what to do with that much intensity. She also didn't like the feeling that if she gave him time he would be able to figure out all of her secrets.

"Yeah," Puck said, "in the dining hall. I promise I won't make you run away this time. And we'll make sure that you take your student i.d. with you when you leave."

It was supposed to be a joke, a weak one, but still a joke. But instead of laughing or flashing her ghost of a smile at him, Rory bit her lips and tears began to form in her eyes again. "Oh sweetie," Tina cooed, wrapping her arms around the small girl's shoulders and shooting Puck a disapproving look over her shoulder, "everything's okay. Come on, let's go play the piano or something. Okay?" Rory nodded and lifted her hand to wipe the tears away from her eyes.

"It was nice meeting all of you," she said, looking up at the wall behind the group as Tina led her to the piano bench.

The group nodded and waved at her before walking out of the room. Puck wanted to stay to apologize to her, but Sam shook his head and grabbed him by the arm. "Come on," the blonde said softly, "you can apologize later. Let's go. You've got to go to class, we've got practice this afternoon." Puck nodded and let his friend lead him out of the room. Right before they entered the hallway he turned his head to look at Rory one more time over his shoulder. She was sitting on the piano bench next to Tina, teaching the asian girl how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the piano. She looked up at him for the briefest second and a small smile spread across her lips before she looked back down at the piano. Puck nodded, that was progress, he decided. They would be friends eventually.

~.~.~.~.~

"So what's really going on here?" Rory asked the moment she couldn't hear the group of boys walking down the hallway. She stopped playing the piano and turned on the bench so that she could look at Tina in the eyes. "Why is everyone acting so strange around me?"

"So you caught onto that?" Tina asked, placing her hands in her lap and looking up at the new girl with a kind smile on her face. "I guess we weren't as subtle as we thought we were, huh?"

Rory shook her head and a small giggle escaped her lips. She quickly clapped a hand over her mouth and the smile instantly dropped from her lips. That was the first time she had laughed since Saturday night. She wasn't sure how she felt about it, the giggle had felt strange and foreign on her lips. She took a deep breath, hoping that Tina hadn't noticed her pause, before she answered Tina's question, "A sign would have been more subtle than you guys," she said, a soft smile spreading across her lips. "I just don't understand why you're doing it, and what you guys are hoping to achieve."

Tina sighed, she knew that the boys would want her to lie to Rory, to make up some reason that they were in the room that morning, for why they had almost shoved Tina at her and then left. But she wasn't a good liar and she knew that no matter what she came up with Rory wouldn't believe her. The girl definitely wasn't stupid. "You scared them," she said softly, glancing worriedly at the brunette and wondering how she would take the news.

"Scared them?" Rory asked quietly, glancing toward the door. "Finn? Mike? And Artie? I barely talked to them. Was it because I was spying on you guys or something? Because I could totally apologize for that! Did I scare you too?"

"No, no no!" Tina said, shaking her head, "You didn't scare the new guys or me, we were prepared for your weird behavior. You scared Puck and Sam yesterday night. You're not very good at hiding the fact that you spend a lot of your free time crying and it worried them. They wanted to make sure you were okay."

"But they don't even know me," Rory pointed out softly. "I met Noah yesterday morning and have barely talked to him since. And I've known Sam for even less time. Why were they worried about me?"

"The thing you need to know about the boys from my glee club is that deep down they're all good boys. Even Puck, although he hates when people tell him that. He has some lame and juvenille need to be a badass, we just let him do that. But deep down they are really good guys. They don't like when girls cry, even if they don't actually know the girls. And it doesn't help that Puck has a little sister. That need to protect is buried somewhere in him and you brought that out."

"I did?" Rory asked softly, glancing down on her hands as they brushed over the piano keys. "I didn't mean to. Is he angry about that?"

Tina shook her head, "You need to stop that," she said softly, reaching out to grab one of Rory's hands. "You need to stop assuming that people are mad at you and that you did something wrong. They are not angry with you, they're worried about you. You've just scared them both over the last twenty-four hours."

Rory nodded, "I suppose my tendency to burst into tears every ten minutes could be a bit worrisome."

"You suppose?" Tina asked. "Girl, from what I heard from Mike they spent three hours pretending to play video games last night, but both of them were thinking about you. Finn and Mike had to restrain them from walking down the hallway last night and banging on your door, forcing you to come out and tell them what had happened to you." She saw the look of fear cross the shorter girl's face and found herself very proud of her boyfriend from stopping the boys from scaring the girl even more than she was already scared.

Rory nodded, she was silent for a moment before she turned to look at Tina, wrapping her free hand around Tina's hand, "Is it okay if I really don't want to talk about it right now?" she asked softly, hoping that she didn't hurt Tina's feelings. She was more than aware about why the boys had left Tina with her. They were hoping that she would talk to Tina about what was happening in her life, what was upsetting her. But she just ... she couldn't do that yet.

~.~.~.~

Puck and the rest of the boys were honestly surprised when they saw Rory approaching their table with Tina later that day. Rory smiled shyly at the boys as she sat down in one of the two empty chairs between Puck and Mike. She quietly shifted her chair slightly to the left, closer to Tina's chair once the other girl had sat down.

"Hey Rory," Puck said, smiling at her, and trying not to make too big of a deal out of her being there. He didn't want to make her more nervous that she obviously already was. Rory nodded at him and lifted a fork full of salad to her mouth. Throughout lunch Puck kept his eye on the girl, she didn't say much, but she talked a little - she ate even less.

And then things changed. Tina had stolen some of Mike's lunch and Mike had pouted at her. "Don't be such a baby," Tina had laughed. Rory flinched and looked down at her uneaten salad. A few minutes later her entire body began to shake.

Puck slowly reached out and placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay, Roar?" he asked her softly.

She looked up at him, tears sparkling in her big brown eyes and nodded, trying to lie, but then she shook her head. "Noah?" she asked softly, "Can you come help me with something?"

Puck barely knew this girl, but there was something so heartbreaking, so special about her that he would do anything to help her. He nodded, "Now?" he asked. She nodded and pushed her chair away from the table. She put on a brave face and waved goodbye to the rest of the group before walking away. She stumbled a bit as though she were about to pass out. Without thinking Puck reached out and wrapped his arms around her waist, steadying her. Rory flinched and looked as though she was about to jump out of his arms, but then she forced herself to look up at Puck's face and she nodded, clenching her jaw and looking down at her feet, but she stayed in his arms.

Puck allowed her to lead the way and within five silent minutes they were at the university's student health center. They waited in line and when it was their turn Rory stepped up to the nurse behind the counter and whispered, "Is there anyway I could get some Plan B?"

She had whispered her question, thinking that Puck wouldn't be able to hear her. But he heard every single word and he was finally putting everything together.

His jaw and fists clenched. He didn't like the picture in his head one bit.

* * *

><p>Author's Note:<br>Hello all! How are you guys this fine April morning?  
>I'm fine for the most part, it's a beautiful day, and I really have nothing to do, but homework, so it's great.<br>Anyway, I hope that you guys liked this chapter as much as the last.  
>And if you did please review to let me know! (Feedback makes me happy and makes me update faster and makes the chapters better... either way it's a win for you guys and it only takes a minute or two.)<br>Speaking of feedback I would like to thank the three lovely people who reviewed the last chapter! I will do so now!

TheGhostofRockSchool: Hello! Thank you so much for being my first review! I'm so glad that you like the story so far and I hope that you liked this chapter as well. I know what you mean, I haven't read any Glee stories from college either, but I figured it could be a fun and challenging change so I figured I'd try it. Hopefully it works out. Thank you again for your review and again, I hope you liked this chapter!

Jamey black: Thank you so much for your review as well. And it didn't suck! It was the perfect mix of flattery and feedback! (writers like flattery. :D) Since you went through the trouble of reviewing for me I tried to make this chapter longer for you. Is this a good length or should I go even longer? Either way I hope that you liked this chapter as well! Thanks again!

DarkFireAngel00: Thank you for your review! I'm glad that you love the story and I hope that you loved this chapter just as much! Was this a fast enough update for you? :D Thanks again!

That's all I've got for now, but I also want to give special thanks to: _TheGhostofRockSchool_, _DarkFireAngel00_, and_ xX-Star Sapphire-Xx_ for adding this story to their favorites/Alerts lists! You guys rock my socks!  
>Thanks for reading! Once again, I hope you liked this chapter.<br>Until next time, happy reading!  
>xoxo,<br>Brook.


	4. All My Loving

Disclaimer: I own nothing except a much loved Glee sing along Wii game, nine silly bands, and a pair of flip flops with a hole in them. And Rory, I own her too, which is pretty cool. All recognizable characters belong to FOX. But I would gladly buy Puck from them.

* * *

><p>Puck watched as Rory handed over her cash and insurance card. He noticed that her hands were shaking as she reached out to grab the paper bag that the nurse handed to her. "Thank you," she whispered before turning around and all but running out of the health center.<p>

Puck followed her out into the hallway and he watched her run into the girl's bathroom. He briefly debated waiting for her in the hallway, but he shook his head. The girl's sign on the door had never stopped him from going in the girl's bathroom before, why should it stop him now? Rory was in there probably freaking out and that intense need to help her was building in him again. He shook his head and pushed the door open, walking into the almost empty bathroom just in time to see Rory put the pill in her mouth and dip her head down to get some water out of the running faucet.

"You know those things are supposed to be taken forty-eight hours after unprotected sex, right?" he asked her.

Rory jumped and spun around with wide eyes and gripped the sink, trying to steady herself. "Noah," she gasped holding her hand up to her heart and taking a few steadying breaths before turning around to turn the water off. "You scared me," she said, looking at him through the mirror. "This is a girl's bathroom, what are you doing here?"

Puck ignored her and took a step closer, "Those things are supposed to be taken no more than two days after unprotected sex," he repeated again. "Did you have sex without a condom on Sunday night?"

Rory shook her head, "With the newer formula you can take it up to three days after unprotected sex," she whispered, not making eye contact with the mohawked boy standing in front of her, and not answering his question.

Puck shook his head and took another step closer to the girl, he wasn't going to buy it. "So you had unprotected sex sometime between today and Saturday night?" he asked. She flinched when he said _Saturday_. "Saturday night?" he asked again, "Jesus, that's cutting it pretty close isn't it? Your seventy-two hours end tonight right?"

Rory nodded, tears welling up in her eyes again. She shrugged and lifted one of her hands to pull one of the long sleeves up so that she could scratch her arm uncomfortably. Puck's eyes followed her hand and they narrowed when he saw the dark bruises that had spread across her wrists and forearms. It was now clear why she had been wearing long sleeves even though it was still August. A growl escaped his lips when he realized that one of the bruises looked like a hand. Rory's head snapped up and she realized that he was looking at her arm, she quickly tried to pull her sleeve down, but Puck was faster than she was.

"Noah!" she gasped again as Puck lunged forward and grabbed her uncovered arm, holding it up to the light so he could get a better look at it. He dropped her arm and grabbed the left one, pulling that sleeve up too so that he could see the dark bruises peppering that arm too. "Please let go of me," Rory whimpered.

"Who did this to you?" Puck asked, thinking that Rory had some abusive boyfriend that she hadn't told anyone about. He glared at her arm, his grip tightening so that it hurt her a bit. "I swear I will tear him apart. What's the bastard's name?"

Rory sighed, trying to ignore the pain that Puck's grip was causing on her wrist. "I don't know," she whispered, reaching up to wipe her eyes with her free hand. "I have no idea what his name is. I haven't really met him."

Puck's eyes traveled from her arm up to her face, "It was a one night stand at a party?" he asked, getting ready to lecture her. No girl deserved that, and that was coming from Puck, the man who had been the king of one night stands in high school. But he had matured since then and he now understood that girls deserved some level of respect. Rory's eyes flickered, she didn't say anything. Puck looked back at her bruises for a moment before he truly started to put everything together. The flinching, the bruises, the Plan B, the fact that she didn't know the guy's name - they were all forming one very ugly picture.

He growled again and pushed Rory away from him, disgust filling his stomach. Rory flinched at the growl and the disgust that was flashing in his eyes. He was disgusted with her, she could tell. For some reason that bothered her more than she would have imagined. "Rory, I need you to tell me something and I need you to tell me the truth, no matter how much you think it will bother me," Puck hissed.

Rory stood, cowering against the back wall of the bathroom, but she nodded, agreeing with his request. She wouldn't look him in the eye though, the disgust in his look was too much for her to handle at the moment.

Puck took a deep steadying breath, "I need to know that this was consensual," he said softly. "Please tell me that you wanted it?" Rory tried to lie, she tried to nod, to give him the answer that she knew he was expecting, but she couldn't. She began to hyperventilate as she slid down the wall onto the floor, sobbing loudly and shaking her head. Puck was there almost instantly, he crouched down on the floor next to her and wrapped his arms around her, Trying to calm her down enough that she would be able to breath normally. Instead of flinching away from him like Puck had expected Rory clung to his shoulders as if her life depended on it, as if she wouldn't be able to survive if he pulled away.

"Ssh," he whispered, lifting one of his hands to brush the hair off her forehead. "Everything's going to be okay, I'm right here. We're going to figure this out," he whispered, placing a soft kiss on her forehead. "It's okay, baby," he said, even more softly.

Rory nodded even though she didn't really believe him. She continued to sob in his arms for about fifteen minutes until her tears had dried. Throughout that time Puck had never stopped whispering reassuring things in her ear. She rested her head on his chest for another minute, trying to burn this feeling into her memory - she felt safe. For the first time in almost a week. She swallowed and began to stand up, but Puck's arms tightened around her waist, not letting her move. "Noah," she said softly, "you need to let go of me. I'm okay now."

"No you're not," Puck said, shaking his head, "You're not okay, we need to figure this out. Right now."

"There's nothing to figure out," Rory said, disentangling herself from Puck's arms and standing up, walking over to the sink to inspect her reflection in the mirror. "I'm handling it," she said, reaching up to wipe away a stray tear.

"Like hell you're handling it," Puck growled standing up and following her, standing behind her so that they could make eye contact in the mirror. "You were raped and you didn't tell anyone! You hardly eat. You spent the last fifteen minutes crying in my arms because you were finally forced to confront the truth. And you waited until almost the last minute to take the Plan B. That is not handling it! That's avoiding the subject."

"Plan B hadn't really been the first thing I was worried about," Rory whispered. "I only remembered because Tina called Mike a baby. That reminded me that I'm not on birth control and the chances of ... the chances of ..."

"The bastard wearing a condom?" Puck supplied dryly.

Rory nodded, "The chances of that weren't very high. I can't have a baby when I'm in college, they would take away my scholarship."

"Your scholarship should be the least of your worries right now," Puck said firmly, his eyes never leaving Rory's in their reflection.

Rory shook her head, "Yes it should," she whispered, "I don't have a family or a home to go back to. This school and that scholarship are the only things I have right now. A baby and my scholarship are the only things I need to worry about right now."

Puck's hands were on her shoulders a second later, forcing her to turn around and face him. "What about the emergency room?" he asked. "The police? Did you go to the hospital and have them check you out? I don't know much about this kind of thing, but can't they get DNA and stuff and catch the guy?"

Rory shook her head again and sighed, "I felt dirty," she whispered, looking away from him. "When I woke up in that hotel room and began to realize what had happened. I felt dirty and the only thing I could do to make myself feel clean was to scrub it all off. Besides, it's been days, there'd be nothing there by now."

"You should have gone to the police right away, before you showered," Puck growled.

"I just wanted to feel clean again!" Rory whispered. "I know that it was stupid and a mistake, but I just couldn't stand feeling dirty and unclean. I thought that if I could just wash him off my body then everything would be okay. Everything would be better as long as I could shower. Maybe I would wake up and it would all have just been a bad dream. All I had to do was shower and everything would be fine."

"And was it?" Puck asked, raising an eyebrow because he already knew the answer to his question.

Rory shook her head, "No," she whispered. "I didn't wake up, it wasn't a bad dream. I cry all the time. I can't eat, I feel like I'm going to throw up every time I try to eat. And I can't sleep. I don't know the guy or what he looked like, but I can see his shadow looming over me every time I close my eyes. I can't get away from him." Puck wrapped his arms around Rory's shoulders. She flinched for a second, but then she settled into his arms and sighed, almost sounding content. "This is the first time I've really felt safe since Sunday morning," she whispered, not realizing that she was saying her thought out loud.

Puck couldn't help but smile. What had happened to this girl was horrible, but it was nice to know that he made her feel safe, that she was finally able to relax because he was around. "You are safe, honey," he whispered, kissing the top of her head so softly that she could have imagined it. "And I'm going to make sure you stay safe."

Rory nodded, having no idea what Puck meant by that until he started to lead her out of the bathroom. "Where are we going?" she asked him nervously. "Noah? Where are you taking me?"

"To the emergency room," Puck said sternly. "We're going to do what you should have done on Sunday morning. Report the rape."

~.~.~.~.~

Rory sighed as yet another nurse walked into the private examination room she had at the nearby hospital. She had been poked and prodded for the last hour and she was honestly sick of doctors and nurses. "I thought we were done," she whispered, sitting up and placing her hands in her lap. "I don't mean to whine, but you said we were done."

The nurse sat down on a stool near the examination chair and reached out, gently grasping one of Rory's hands. "Aurora," she said softly, trying to make sure that Rory understood how serious she was about what she was about to say. "You of all people have every right to whine today. What happened to you was horrible, and us poking around down there today can't have made it any easier. I just wanted to come in here and tell you what was going to happen now. Are you ready for that?"

Rory stared at the blonde nurse for a moment before she nodded, "Can Noah come in here to be with me when you tell me?" she asked before the nurse could start talking. "I'm not sure if I'm ready to face this on my own yet." The nurse nodded and smiled, she had been about to ask if Rory wanted her mohawked friend in the room. The boy hadn't stopped pacing back and forth in the hallway outside Rory's room since they had taken her in to get examined. Without a word she stood up and opened the door, gesturing to Puck to let him know that it was safe to come in.

Puck walked into the room, his face hard and stern, but the second he saw Rory's tear stained cheeks his face softened and he rushed over to the other side of the examination table, holding out his hand for one of hers. Rory placed her tiny hand in his and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "Are you okay?" she whispered, recognizing the stressed out look on the boy's face.

Puck laughed, "Am I okay? I should be asking you that. How are you holding up, kid?"

Rory nodded and squeezed his hand again, "I'm just ready to leave. They need to tell me what's going to happen now and then we can go home, right?" she asked, turning her head to glance at the nurse who nodded gently at her. "I just wanted you in here with me ... I don't like dealing with this on my own."

"You just don't deal with it on your own," Puck said with a humorless chuckle before he turned to look at the nurse. "So what's going to happen? Did her shower ruin everything? Does this end now? Or will you be able to dig something up so that we can catch this bastard?"

"Unfortunately, when Aurora showered she washed away any DNA evidence that had been left behind," the nurse said sadly. "But when we did the examination it was clear that Aurora had been raped." Rory's breath hitched at the word and Puck squeezed her hand while flashing a glare at the woman, blaming the blonde for the fact that Rory was upset again. "We did an STI screening and we should have the results within the week," the nurse continued, trying even harder not to upset the small brunette or her protective friend anymore than she already had. "And with the hair that we pulled we will be able to test it to see if someone slipped her Rohypnol on Sunday night."

"Rohypnol?" Puck asked, not recognizing the word.

"Roofies," Rory whispered, trying not to cry again. "They said that what happened to me on Sunday sounded a lot like someone had given me roofies. The evidence can stay in your hair for up to six months if you have long hair."

The nurse nodded, "We'll know if you were given Rohypnol by the end of the week as well."

"So besides telling her that she was drugged and whether or not she has any STDs you guys can't do anything for her?" Puck growled, glaring at the blonde nurse before turning to glare at the door that led to the hallway where he knew a doctor was standing somewhere, not helping someone else just like he hadn't helped Rory.

"STIs," Rory whispered quietly.

"What?" Puck asked, turning his head to look at Rory as if she was speaking some foreign language.

"It's STIs now," Rory said softly, "sexually transmitted illnesses, not diseases. It changed about two years ago."

"I don't give a damn what they call it now," Puck growled, "I want the people at this damn hospital to be able to do something to help you, not to just sit around telling you how sorry they are about what happened to you."

"Noah," Rory said softly, placing her other hand on top of Puck's in an attempt to calm him down. "They're doing everything they can." And then she turned to look at the nurse, "Is that all? Will we ever know what really happened to me?"

This was the part of the conversation that the nurse had been dreading, she knew it was going to break Rory's heart, "You might begin to get memories," she said softly, "flashes of what happened. But even if you regain your memories and find out who did this to you, you will never be able to charge him with it."

"Why the hell not?" Puck roared. And for the first time that day Rory didn't try to hush him or tell him that he needed to be quiet. She turned to look at the nurse, Puck's question mirrored in her eyes.

"With no DNA evidence and no witnesses there's no reason for a judge and jury to believe her," the nurse said softly. "No one but Aurora will be able to see her memories and his lawyer will just say that the two don't like each other. He will say what happened to Aurora was horrible, but that she was just naming his client because she had no one else to blame. Her memories will be dismissed as hearsay and no one will be charged."

Puck growled again and Rory looked down at her lap, accepting that there really was nothing she could do about her situation. The nurse sighed before bringing up another touchy subject. "Aurora," she said softly, turning to look only at the brunette on the examination table. "What you went through was truly horrible. And if the memories do start to come back things are only going to get worse. You are going to be dealing with a lot of psychological pain and extreme trust issues. I would suggest that you go see a councilor, as soon as possible so that you can begin to work through these problems."

"I'm not crazy!" Rory snapped, raising her voice for the first time since she had arrived at the hospital. "I don't need to go see a councilor or a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I'm not crazy!"

"I never said you were," the nurse said softly. "I just feel like in the coming months you're going to need someone to talk to. The next couple months are going to be very hard on you after all."

Rory looked up at Puck with tears in her eyes, silently begging him to come to her defense. He couldn't. While he was mad at the nurse for continuing to push something that was upsetting the girl sitting next to him he did agree with the fact that she should probably go see a psychologist. She was going to need help, help that he and his friends didn't know how to give her. But now wasn't the time to push this on her. He turned to look at the nurse and shook his head.

That wasn't enough of a defense as Rory had expected from Puck. She shook her head before turning back to the nurse. "I want to thank you for your concern about my mental well-being, but I do not need to go pay someone who expects me to talk and wants to barge into my private life, to my experiences. There's plenty of nosey people around already, ones that I don't have to pay to try to learn my business. So thank you for your suggestion, but it is not an option." She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath before she asked, "Are we done _now_? Can I go?"

The nurse nodded and Rory jumped off the examination table and walked to the door, she only stopped to turn around at the door to make sure that Puck was following her. "Just check yourself out at the front desk," the nurse called after them.

Puck followed Rory silently down the hallway. He figured that she needed some time to herself. But he could hear her muttering to herself the entire way down the hallway, "She thinks I'm crazy. I'm not. I was ... I was ra - I was raped, that doesn't mean that I'm crazy. That happens to tons of people and none of them are crazy. How dare she imply that I'm going to need to see someone. I'll be fine, I can handle this."

After she had signed herself out Puck led her into the parking lot, reaching out and grabbing her hand, silently telling her that she wasn't alone. But he still didn't say anything. She would talk to him when she was ready to talk. There was no point in trying to make her talk when she was obviously not ready for that.

Rory glared at the ground as Puck led her to his truck. He offered to help her into the passenger seat but she shook her head. She didn't want anymore help that day, she just wanted to get back to her dorm so that she could bury herself in her blankets and sleep. She found her own way to struggle into the passenger seat of his tall truck and she buckled herself in before she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, forming a small protective ball around herself.

It wasn't until they were halfway back to the campus that Puck noticed that she was shivering. He reached his right hand into the back of the truck, rummaging around for a sweatshirt or something to give her. He usually had at least one extra one laying around back there. He found one that had been in there since the winter before and he gave it an experimental sniff to make sure the it didn't smell like rotten cheese or feet or something equally as gross before giving it to the small brunette sitting next to him. Rory looked up at him and gave him a brief, weak smile before she pulled the sweatshirt over her head, "Thank you," she whispered, thanking him for more than the sweatshirt.

Puck nodded and planned to resume driving in silence, but he couldn't anymore. He sighed and turned to look at the brunette for a quick second. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, turning his eyes back to the road and signaling a right turn that would bring them unto the road that led to the university.

"There's nothing to talk about," Rory whispered. "Life's not fair, I just need to learn to deal with it. You heard the nurse. The only thing I can really hope for is that my STI screening comes back negative. And then after that ... I just have to get over it."

"This isn't really something you can get over too easily," Puck pointed out softly.

"I'll be fine," Rory whispered, wrapping her arms around her legs and turning her head to look out the window. She had effectively ended the conversation.

Puck nodded and turned his eyes back to the road. She wasn't ready to talk yet. But when she was ready he hoped she would come talk to him.

~.~.~.~.~

Puck was getting ready to go to bed later that night when someone started to bang on his door. He turned to look at his clock and groaned, it was three in the morning, if it was Sam or any of the other guys at the door he was going to kill them, they knew he had to get up early for class the next day. But all his anger disappeared when he opened the door and saw Rory standing in the hallway, dripping wet and glaring at his feet. "It's raining out there," Rory muttered, stating the obvious as she pushed her way into Puck's dorm.

"Hello to you too, Rory," Puck said with a smirk.

Rory shook her head as if there was no time for pleasantries. And then she practically blew up. "Do you know what?" she asked, pacing back and forth across his dorm, "I am mad! I'm angry, pissed really. That's it, I'm pissed! Some asshole drugs me and either he or another asshole attack me! Well not really attack, what they did was worse, some guy brought me to some gross motel outside of Columbus and rapes me and then he leaves me there! I woke up alone, Noah! Scared and alone. And then because I'm an idiot I took a shower and got rid of the only thing that the cops could have used to catch him."

Puck reached out to place his hands on her shoulders, "Calm down, okay," he whispered, although it was this kind of freak out that he had expected and been looking for that afternoon.

Rory shook her head and stepped out from under his hands. "And what's even worse than the fact I was raped was that I was a virgin! He, whoever he is, took that away from me. But he also took away my trust and my ability to have fun. He made me afraid. And I want him to pay for that!"

Puck realized that she was crying now. He stepped forward quickly and wrapped his arms around the small girl, pulling her wet form closer to him so that he could hold her. She flinched for a moment, but then she took a deep breath in and relaxed into his arms. "That's all I've really got to say," she whispered.

She started to pull away from him but Puck shook his head, "No you don't," he said softly, ducking his head to kiss the top of her head, "you and I both need this right now." He expected her to argue, to say that she needed to go back to her room, but she didn't. She didn't say anything. She simply sighed and then he felt her small arms wrap around his waist so that she was holding him too.

"Are you okay?" he asked her softly, a few minutes later, pulling away so that he could look down at the girl standing in front of him. She nodded and yawned. "You should go to bed," Puck said pulling away.

This time Rory shook her head, "I can't really sleep," she said softly. "I get nightmares and then I wake up alone in a dark room. I'm so sick of waking up alone."

"Then don't," Puck said as he walked over to his closet and pulled a pair of basketball shorts and a McKinley football shirt off the ground. They looked clean enough so he threw them at her and told her where she could find the bathroom. "You can stay here," he explained when he saw the confused look on the girl's face. Again he expected her to argue, but she simply nodded and left the room. Puck felt bad, she must be really scared if she wasn't going to argue with him.

When Rory walked back into the room Puck was sitting in his bed reading a comic book and waiting for her. "What side of the bed do you want?" he asked.

"The side closest to the wall, please," Rory said softly, after her outburst all the fight had left her and now she was back to the scared, timid girl she had been since Sunday morning. Puck nodded and got out of the bed, letting her climb in first and then he climbed into the bed as well. He turned so his back was to her and he was as close to the edge of the bed as he could be without falling off the bed. He didn't want to invade her personal space any more than he had to in the twin bed.

"Thank you," Rory whispered once she had gotten settled and Puck had turned off the light.

"Anytime, Roar," Puck whispered back before closing his eyes and falling asleep.

Puck woke up two hours later to the sound of someone crying. He rolled over onto his other side and saw Rory curled around herself in a protective ball, her back to the wall. At first he thought that she was crying in her sleep but then she opened her eyes. "Oh," she said softly, "Noah, I'm sorry. I was trying not to wake you up."

Puck nodded, of course she didn't. Rory never liked doing anything that would make her a bother to to someone else. She was probably the least selfish victim anyone would ever meet. "It's fine," he said softly, "what's wrong?"

"It's nothing," Rory said, shaking her head and lifting a hand to wipe a tear off her cheek.

"Doesn't look like nothing," Puck said, sitting up in his bed and turning on the light so that he could look more closely at Rory. She looked like she had barely gotten any sleep.

"I just had another nightmare," she said softly. "And then I woke up in a room that I didn't recognize and it was like a flashback to Sunday morning. I thought I was alone and then I had to remind myself that I wasn't alone, that you were here too." She started to tear up again as she choked out a last sentence, "I'm just so sick of having to convince myself that I'm safe, you know?"

Puck didn't know. But her sentence triggered an idea in his mind. She had said that he made her feel safe earlier that day. If he could make her feel safe then he could do it now. He laid down on his back, further away from the edge of the bed then he had been when he first fell asleep. And then he slowly moved his hand, patting the space next to him, "Come here," he said softly. Rory looked at him, unsure of what she was supposed to do. "This way when you wake up you won't have to remind yourself that you aren't alone and that you are safe," Puck said, before patting the empty space next to his side again, "now come here."

Rory moved slowly, but she did lay down next to Puck before rolling onto her side and into his body. She rested her head lightly on his chest as he reached over to his desk and shut off the light again. "Is this all right?" she whispered.

One of Puck's arms wound around her waist, pulling her closer to him. She flinched for a moment before she took a deep breath in and smelled the scent that was fast becoming synonymous with Noah Puckerman. In her head he smelled safe. She relaxed as Puck began to run his other hand through her hair and he began to hum to her. "I love this song," she whispered with a smile as she recognized the tune.

"_Close your eyes and I'll kiss you  
><em>_Tomorrow I'll miss you  
><em>_Remember I'll always be true  
><em>_And then while I'm away  
><em>_I'll write home every day  
><em>_And I'll send all my loving to you._" she sang softly before drifting off into an almost content silence.

"Is this all right?" Puck asked her softly, worried that he was making her more nervous than she already was. But she didn't answer, he ducked his head down to realize that she had fallen asleep. He smiled and laid a soft kiss on her forehead before he wrapped his other arm around her waist and finally fell asleep.

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><p>Author's Note:<br>Hello my lovely readers!  
>I hope that you guys liked this chapter.<br>And I am super psyched that you guys liked the last one so much!  
>If you liked the chapter write a review... it only takes a minute or two and it makes me smile for an hour. :D<br>Anyway, speaking of reviews I will now respond to the ones that I got on the last chapter (drum roll please!)

TheGhostofRockSchool: Thank you so much for your review! Not only were you my first review but you've been my longest one too. That makes me very happy. So thank you again!  
>I'm so glad that you liked the last chapter and I hope that you liked this one as well. And I am so glad that you think I'm doing a good job writing about this. I knew that it was going to be a difficult subject when I started the story, but I wanted a challenge. And now I'm just worried that I'm not doing it right.<br>As for Tina, you're going to see a lot more of her in the story. I love her on the show too which is why she's the only Glee girl that is at Ohio State... I wanted to make sure she wouldn't get lost in the crowd.  
>Thank you again for your review and I hope that you liked this chapter too!<br>p.s. Yes I will be updating the Break Your Heart, I'm just waiting until the end of the school year so that I will have less school work to concentrate on when I do. :D

Jamey Black: Thank you for your review as well! I'm so glad that you liked the last chapter and I hope that you liked this one as well. It's nice to know that the story is getting better and better - I just hope that this chapter continued the trend. Thank you again!

Misaria: Thank you for your three reviews! I'm so glad that you've like the story so far and I hope that you like this chapter as well. I'm sorry about your homework. :( If it makes any difference I hate mine too. I should be writing a 15 page paper right now ... it's due tomorrow and I haven't started it yet. Anyway, thanks again!

TheGirlWithTheButterflyTattoo: Hello new reviewer! Thank you so much for reading my story! And thank you even more for reviewing it! I'm so glad that you like the story so far. And I hope that you liked this chapter as well! Let me now, reviews make me happy which makes me update faster. (I'm really that easily bribed). But seriously, thank you again!

And that's all the reviews I've got for now, I would like to thank _yonyon38_, _hopexneverxfades_, _iLuvTwiBBoyz_, _Fallenlily366_, _odessa-fairychild_, and _Kathalla_ for putting this story on their alerts/favs list.  
>Thank you all so much for your support!<br>And that's all folks!  
>Until next time, happy reading.<br>xoxo,  
>Brook.<p> 


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